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Just caught the weigh in. Barring something mad happening at the hotel or on the way to the arena today, Holloway vs Edgar is actually happening this time.

We’ve gone into Max Holloway vs Frankie Edgar and the consensus seems to be that Edgar is getting chinned with ease tonight. I’m not feeling it though. I get the reasoning for thinking that, Holloway is in his prime and Edgar is 37 and approaching the end of his career, plus shorter and not as varied a striker as Max. I get it. I just don’t see it as an easy fight.

I’m pretty much 50/50 on this one actually but I’m going Edgar on points. For the reasons I’ve gone into above, I’ll concede it’s probably more likely Max wins but I’ve had a gut feeling for a while that Frankie is going to give him issues. I at least see it being a tough fight for Max, if not a loss. But I think Frankie is going to pull it off tonight. The combination of Max never facing a wrestler like Frankie plus Frankie knowing it’s probably his last shot and Max also coming off a bad beating from Poirier in April. And I just think Frankie has more left in the tank than people think. Whatever happens, I just hope it’s a great fight. This card needs these two to deliver.

Cris Cyborg vs Felicia Spencer then. From the second this fight was announced I think everyone thought ‘Oooh, poor Felicia’. Facing a pissed off Cyborg who’s coming off that knockout loss to Amanda Nunes is not an enviable position to be in. Cyborg looked well arsey weighing in. Usually she’s actually quite smiley, none of that here. Don’t know if it’s the loss to Nunes, Dana being a prick about her again to the media or what. But she did not look happy.

Cyborg by early KO/TKO for me. It’s the obvious pick and I just don’t know enough about Spencer yet. But I’ll say this, I like Spencer’s confidence. She doesn’t seem fazed or intimidated and that’s probably half the battle. She’s also unbeaten, a BJJ black-belt and she’s a big girl who could potentially be able to take Cyborg down. If she does this could get very interesting because Spencer’s grappling looks ace from what I’ve seen. If there was ever a time to catch Cyborg, it might be now. We’re assuming that she’ll come in off that Nunes loss and wreck shop but it could have had the reverse effect and shaken her confidence. Then you add in the outside the cage drama with Dana and the fact this is most likely her last fight in the UFC, she could be ripe for the upset. I’ve still got to favour Cyborg and she’ll probably just bulldoze Spencer in 2 minutes. But if Spencer has enough about her to survive and make it a grappling match, I honestly wouldn’t be massively shocked if she springs the upset here.

Geoff Neal vs Niko Price is my frontrunner to bag FOTN. This is a fight that everyone’s been sleeping on, IMO. Neal’s won 5 in a row coming into this, and stopped 4 of them, including one of the best knockouts of last year with his headkick against Frank Camacho. And Price is a madman. He’ll probably never break through as a contender because he gets a bit too wild but he’s stupidly fun to watch. He’s a real finisher as well, 12 of his 13 wins have come inside the distance and he’s always dangerous. He knocked out Randy Brown with hammerfists from his back and knocked out Tim Means out of nowhere in a fight he was getting battered in.

It’s a tough one but I’m having Price by KO/TKO. Really could go either way with this. On recent form, Neal has the better momentum but I just can’t count Price out. I think he can make it a rough and nasty fight and he thrives off those types of scraps.

Olivier Aubin-Mercier vs Arman Tsarukyan is an interesting one. By far the most interested I’ve ever been in a fight involving OAM. He’s usually dull as dishwater and his cringey ‘Canadian Gangster’ schtick is the worst. Tsarukyan is where my investment is here. He really impressed me in his debut on the Russia card in April. He didn’t get an easy draw, they threw him straight in with Islam Makhachev who’s a bit of a beast. He lost on points but had a strong showing. It was one of the better grappling heavy fights I’ve seen in a good while and it got FOTN. So he took a L but it wasn’t the worst start to his UFC career.

Fuck it, I’ll go Tsarukyan by decision. That might be more wishful thinking than anything else though. OAM, while a dullard, isn’t easy to beat and he’s even harder to look good against. So another tough fight for Tsarukyan here. But I think he has bags of potential so I’m hoping he shines tonight.

Marc-Andre Barriault vs Krzysztof Jotko opens up the main card. They nearly got into it a bit during the weigh in face-off. Don’t know a great deal about Barriault. He’s Canadian so he’ll be the crowd favourite. He’s 11-2 and dropped a decision to Andrew Sanchez in his UFC debut in May. Jotko is 20-4 and has been in with better opposition.

I don’t know. Or care really. I’ll say Jotko on points. Not fussed about this fight. Hopefully it’s decent though. Last thing you want is a dud opening up a PPV.

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This is a very weak PPV card on paper. Hopefully it can exceed expectations.

My heart's torn on the main event, one of my all time favourite fighters in Edgar vs one of the most exciting guys there is right now in Holloway. I don't fancy Edgar's chances. I can just see Holloway lighting him up on his feet.

The co main event interests me too, I like Felicity's calmness and the fact she has a zero in her record could mean something.

The rest of the card I can't comment on as apart from OAM, none of the fighters are overly familiar to me. I'm sure I've seen most of them fight but I'd have to do some research to see when exactly I have seen them.

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I woke up late and only caught the last 3 fights, but all were really good - Cyborg/Spencer turned into a right old war and was far better than I thought it'd be. Bit of a bugger that Price lost, but it was a fair stoppage and it won't do him any harm in the long run - never a dull moment with that fellow. Holloway is something else - in his interview he certainly didn't seem like someone who'd just spent the last half hour in a fist fight. I wish fighters would stop bringing their kids to the shows, though, it can't be healthy seeing your parent get beat up. There might be too many shows and a lack of stars these days, but 2019 has been pretty good so far, Covington/Lawler should be a blast.

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Decent show. As always I forgot to do the MMAPlayground thing. I would’ve scored quite well on this show as well. I went 9-2 and got all the winners right except for Holloway-Edgar and Neal-Price. Typical when I don’t make my picks.

Holloway vs Edgar was pretty good. One of Holloway’s better performances for me. Might not have been his most spectacular or dramatic like the Aldo and Ortega fights but he faced a tricky and experienced veteran here, with a style he’d never been up against before, and mostly shut him down. I really thought Frankie was going to give him issues but Max just didn’t let him even get his wrestling game started. Really impressed just how well he stopped the takedowns. I gave Frankie the 4th, and I thought the 1st round was closer than they were making out. But Holloway won 2, 3 and 5 clearly to me. I had it either 49-46 or 48-47 for Max. No shame for Frankie though. Max took his main strength away in the wrestling so he was forced to play Holloway’s game on the feet, and he was still competitive throughout. He wasn’t destroyed and it certainly wasn’t embarrassing. He had spells of success in pretty much every round. Max just always had an answer for Frankie ‘The Answer’. Tough seeing Edgar’s kid crying after.

I really thought Frankie was going to retire for a second during the Rogan interview. I definitely think he’s got more left in the tank so I don’t have a problem with him carrying on. But it’s hard to see where he goes from here. At 37, it’s unlikely he gets back in the title picture at 145. Might be even less likely at 155 with the logjam of guys waiting for a shot there. And I can’t see him fancying cutting to 135 this late in the game. It’s not even like there are any obvious dream fights for him in his weight range either.

And who’s next for Holloway? Frankie Edgar was really the last top guy for him to beat at 145 but the beating he took from Poirier has kind of killed the desire to see him move up to lightweight for me. At least for the time being. He’s kind of in that Jon Jones position now where he’s probably going to have to wait for a new contender to emerge from the newer breed of featherweights. I guess Alexander Volkanovski is the most obvious next challenger. After that maybe a Yair Rodriguez or Zabit Magomedsharipov.

Cyborg vs Spencer was a better and more competitive fight than expected. I felt like Cyborg still probably took the first two rounds but they were a battle and a struggle and Spencer certainly had her moments with the cut and in some of the striking exchanges. Cyborg closed the show strong with that big third round though and the decision wasn’t in doubt by the final buzzer. Spencer fought well though and it was one of those fights where her stock probably goes up even in defeat. She showed here she’s got more to her than just solid grappling. She’s got some striking, she’s tough as fuck and she’s game to throw down with anyone. Wonder what happens with Cyborg now. Hopefully they come to terms to keep her in the UFC. She’s too good a fighter to let slip away and the division badly needs her. There’s only like 3 women in it as it is, for fuck’s sake.

Neal vs Price was near enough exactly as I envisioned it. Price just has a knack for getting into these chaotic scraps. I really liked what we saw from Neal here though. He’d looked good when I saw him before but this was the one that’s got him on my radar now. Seems a good guy as well. Price will be back with another slobberknocker soon.

Was chuffed to see Arman Tsarukyan get the win over OAM. Think he’s definitely going to be one to watch. 22 years old and has looked good against two tricky opponents in Islam Makhachev and OAM so far in the UFC. He’s only going to get better as well.

Figueiredo vs Pantoja was fun as well. Figueiredo is a bit of an animal when he gets his striking going. One of the more entertaining flyweights by far from what I’ve seen of him.

And I thought Gillian Robertson looked pretty great dismantling Sarah Frota down on Fight Pass. They were hyping up Frota as a beast grappler and Robertson just outworked her, got mount and battered her with elbows for the TKO. She didn’t get off to the best of starts to her career but she’s now 4-1 in the UFC with 4 finishes.

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Just caught Volkanovski’s interview at the end of the PPV and heard him pushing to get the shot at Holloway at UFC 243 in Melbourne in October. I’d love to see that. A double-header of Whittaker vs Adesanya and Holloway vs Volkanovski would be fantastic.

Someone got this clip of Cyborg and Dana talking backstage as well...

I completely believe Cyborg when she says Dana is lying about her not wanting the Nunes rematch. Even this clip here, there’s not much to it but you can see Cyborg is bringing it up to his face and Dana looks all sheepish. It’s clearly more to do with Cyborg’s contract situation. The whole thing felt like Dana trying to pressure her into just hastily signing a new contract to prove she wasn’t ducking Nunes. This Spencer fight was the last one on her current contract. Now she can at least negotiate her new deal coming off a win and hopefully get that Nunes fight on. Could go either way though. She was quoted by I think Marc Raimondi after the fight as saying Dana has bullied her from day one and still is. It’s hard to see them coming to an agreement. I could just as easily see Scott Coker swooping in and getting her in the Bellator cage by the end of 2019.

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Yes, I'm sure they'll offer her a one fight deal where she gets to fight the champ and P4P best, potentially beat her and then go elsewhere, meaning the 3rd fight won't happen. Real good business sense to do that.

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Yes, I'm sure they'll offer her a one fight deal where she gets to fight the champ and P4P best, potentially beat her and then go elsewhere, meaning the 3rd fight won't happen. Real good business sense to do that.

There is a news source somewhere I've seen that said dana has actually said he will be happy to offer her a 1 fight extension if she wants the Nunes rematch

It's still a sounding to me that Dana isn't hyping her up to be the biggest challenger to Nunes. I could understand if he came out and says "she was unreasonable in contract negotiations, we weren't willing to pay what she thought she was worth". But to come out and say she doesn't want the Nunes rematch, just doesn't make sense to me if you're a promoter.

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He's trying to pressure her into taking the fight on his terms, by putting it out there that Cyborg doesn't want it. In Dana's head, I imagine if somebody doesn't accept the terms he offers for a fight, then "they don't want the fight". It's the same thing he did with GSP, and with Brock Lesnar.

We saw GSP wanted to fight, but on his financial terms. They came to a deal eventually, but not before Dana tried to leverage At Pierre into taking the fight with Bisping for a lower dollar figure than he thought he was worth.

Lesnar never stated he was retired, and to the best of my knowledge, hasn't actively removed himself from the USADA pool. However Uncle Dana has decided that Brock Lesnar is retired, when the real problem seems to be Brock has his price for getting beat up by Cormier, and it doesn't gel with Dana's opinion of his worth.

This Cyborg thing is just more of the same. White trying to use the press to spin opinion against a fighter so that they accept a fight offer on terms that are closer to his than theirs.

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The UFC wouldn't risk signing her to a straight 1-fight deal, where she can leave the organisation while still recognised as their champion. If they did sign her to a 1-fight extension, it would have a "champions' clause" in it. Meaning, that if she managed to beat Nunes and regain the title, she would be contractually obliged to defend the title in the UFC at a later date, and not authorised to fight elsewhere in the interim.

I believe the UFC and Bellator have "champions' clauses" or similar clauses written into the contracts of all their fighters.

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I'm guessing part of it could be that Cyborg is supposed to have a three month exclusive negotiating period with the UFC, and might have interest in letting that expire and seeing what offers are out there, before signing a new contract with the UFC.